I wonder how many people are still genuinely shocked to find out that Trump did something wrong again; how many people turn on the TV and clutch their pearl necklaces and faint when the news dares to call him out for something?
I understand that some of his appeal was originally him acting like a tough guy who’s not afraid to speak his mind and tell it like it is, but sometimes he says things that are quite questionable. And by sometimes, I mean all the time.
Take, for example, one of the tweets that was sent out after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in Parkland, Florida. After sending out the usual rounds of thoughts and prayers, Trump tweeted, “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”
Those are two polar opposite trains of thought. I can’t think of anything that would drive a sane person to link a school shooting that killed seventeen people to collusion with Russia.
I don’t even know where to begin with this. There are a few things I’m positive about:
Trump is physically incapable of going five minutes without making something about himself.
Trump totally doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation.
Hey, speaking of gun reform, Democrats are focusing too much on Russia meddling with the election.
A few days after we were graced with such a well-thought-out message from the President, he spoke with survivors and relatives of those who died in the Parkland, Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings. He had a cute, little notecard with him with some talking points written down, like super morbid icebreakers at the world’s worst party. The fifth bullet point is really the only one that matters: “I hear you.”
Trump needed to remind himself to empathize with people who lost loved ones due to gun violence.
The media sure had fun with that one.
Those who attended the meeting suggested raising the age minimum for buying assault weapons or banning them all together, and Trump used the listening session to pitch his own ideas. He polled the group, asking for a raise of hands to see how many people agreed or disagreed with arming teachers.
“[Aaron Feis] was very brave, saved a lot of lives, I suspect,” Trump said, according to the New York Times, referring to a coach at Stoneman Douglas High School who reportedly died using his body as a shield to protect students. “But if he had a firearm, he wouldn’t have had to run, he would have shot and that would have been the end of it.”
If I asked anyone with half a working brain cell what Trump meant by that, I’m pretty sure they would say that he wants to arm teachers.
Apparently there’s some kind of subtext that the nation failed to see, because in a series of Tweets sent out on Feb. 23, Trump argued, “I never said ‘give teachers guns’ like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC. What I said was to look at the possibility of giving ‘concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience’ – only the best. 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to…immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions. Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!”
I have questions.
How would adding more guns to the gun problem fix anything? CBS reported that the armed security guard did nothing to stop Nikolas Cruz, so what would a geography teacher with a handgun and 30 scared students do against a school shooter with an AR-15? What if a student got a hold of the gun? Where would it even be kept? What kind of training would the teachers receive?
Remember, Trump is a guy who received $30 million from the NRA and needs to be reminded to be empathetic. It’s futile to think that anything will happen on a legislative level. We the people have to decide that enough is enough and we need to act on it ourselves.
Izzy Manzo can be contacted at imanzo@kscequinox.com